Singapore-headquartered Tata Communications is now designated a “Technology Supplier of Formula 1”, with category exclusive designations as “Official Connectivity Provider of Formula 1” and “Official Web Hosting and Content Delivery Network of Formula1.com”.
Vinod Kumar, MD and CEO of Tata Communications and Bernie Ecclestone, CEO of Formula One group announced the multi-year technology service and marketing agreement at a London press conference today. Photo from Tata.
Tata Communications will deliver connectivity to all 20 Formula 1 race locations over its global network, the largest in the world.
“Formula 1 requires fast and secure connectivity, because even a split second of downtime can have huge repercussions for its business, brand and reputation,” says Vinod Kumar, Managing Director and CEO of Tata Communications.It will also provide hosting and content delivery services to Formula1.com, which is accessed by tens of millions of fans around the globe.
Formula One group businesses and race locations will now be connected to the Tata Global Network (TGN), supported by secure MPLS connectivity.
Formula One Management’s IT infrastructure and Formula1.com will be colocated and hosted in Tata Communications’ data centres.
Tata Communications’ capabilities in video and content delivery networks (CDN) will enable uninterrupted, high-quality connectivity to the multi-media portal on Formula1.com.
“Connectivity and content delivery are critical issues for Formula 1 and working with the best in the business is a priority for us,” says Bernie Ecclestone, CEO of Formula One group.The (TGN) has Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific data transfer capacity of one terabit per second.
This capacity will ensure Tata Communications to fully support Formula1.com during race weekends, when the site gets on average four million unique visits per weekend, peaking at seven million over some events.
Tata Communications’ infrastructure will enable the sport’s official website to instantly scale up to cope with these significant and sometimes unpredictable traffic spikes.
Tata Communications will also provide Formula1.com with a new Managed Security Suite and will apply an additional layer of managed security monitoring to ensure an increased level of protection to Formula One Management’s IT infrastructure.
Looking ahead, Tata Communications and Formula One Management will also work in close collaboration on research and development around connectivity and the latest video technologies.